SC closes case against Johnson and Johnson

The Supreme Court on Friday closed a PIL seeking action against US-based pharma major Johnson and Johnson after noting that a scheme has been formulated asking the company to pay up to Rs 1.22 crore compensation to those who suffered faulty hip implants.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul asked the Union government's ministry of health to give wide publicity to the proposal so that all those who suffered the medical consequences can approach the authorities to claim the compensation.

The top court noted that the response from the Centre that an experts committee had already framed a scheme for granting compensation to the affected persons.

Senior advocate Salman Khurshid, appearing for a PIL petitioner, Arun Kumar Goenka, contended that only 4,000 patients came forward out of the 15,000 people who were administered the implants.

On this, the court asked the government to give wide publicity to the scheme.

The petitioner had contended that the health ministry and Drugs Standard Control Organisation, responsible for approval of new drugs and control, had failed to take any concrete action against the US company, Johnson and Johnson and its subsidiary company here against “illegal implantation of faulty, deadly and poisonous 'DePuy ASR Hip Implants'” on 14,525 patients in the country.

The Union government had set up a committee on February 8, 2017 under the chairmanship of Arun Agarwal to look into the aftermath of the disaster caused by the faulty hip implants.